This past week the Georgia General Assembly stood in recess during the Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday. The recess continued while members of the Appropriations Committee gathered to receive testimony on the Fiscal Year 2009 budget from various department heads of state agencies. However, prior to the recess, we passed a very important piece of legislation the preceding week.
It goes without saying that our future is tied to water. Without water, the results are disastrous. With agriculture as our largest economic force, no water equals poor crop production. In our cities, no water equals no growth and no new businesses. It is imperative that we solve this problem immediately. That is why we passed House Resolution 1022, a bill that ratifies the statewide water management plan.
The 2004 Comprehensive Statewide Water Management Planning Act charged the Water Council and the Environmental Protection Division with development of a comprehensive statewide water plan. This plan was to include strategies for sustainable management of water quality and water quantity while supporting our state's growth.
The State Water Plan developed by the Water Council is not a plan to address the current drought conditions being experienced in different parts of Georgia. It is intended to guide long-term planning and will be implemented in conjunction with existing statutes and regulations that guide responses to drought or other emergency circumstances. It identifies a set of statewide water management policies that will guide sustainable use of Georgia's water resources. It describes a "toolbox" of management practices (actions and activities) that can be implemented to meet current and future water needs. Finally, it lays out a framework for regional planning.
Under the new State Water Plan, a series of regional water planning councils would be formed for eleven water planning regions. These water planning councils would oversee regional water plans. The regional water planning councils will each consist of at least 25 members, to be appointed by the Governor (13 members), Lt. Governor (6 members), and Speaker of the House (6 members). Water planning council members must reside within the geographical boundaries of the water planning region, and membership requirements include provisions for approximately 30% of the membership of each council to be representatives of local governments.
The plan also laid out a number of management practices (some already being widely used in our state; others yet to be fully available for use in Georgia) that comprise a toolbox from which local governments - through regional water councils - might select to meet their long-term, water needs. The management practices in the 'toolbox' include categories that will allow:
Better management of demand for water (e.g., water conservation);
Improvement in managing the return of water to our rivers and streams after use, and
Provisions for adding water supply capacity (e.g., water supply reservoirs) to our waters.
Provisions for the protection of water quality and management of assimilative capacity for current and future uses and users.
Please call or stop by if I can ever be of assistance. You can reach me at 478-994-8674 (home), 404-651-7737 (office) or via email jmalcolmcole@hotmail.com.
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2 comments:
Must be election time.
Never hear anything from them until they need a vote.
It's so nice we have a State Water Plan that "is not a plan to address the current drought conditions". Leave it to the politicians to pretend they are doing something about a critical issue, but actually accomplish nothing.
Where is the strict conservation legislation or at least some controlled growth legislation?
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